Steven Wilson emerged from the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series Championship Four to claim his first eNASCAR title, the $100,000 grand prize, and the Dale Earnhardt Jr. trophy.
With a large contingency of family members who drove from Iowa City, Iowa, in attendance to cheer him on for the final, held at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, N.C., Wilson of Stewart-Haas eSports dominated the final race of the season, run on the virtual Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Alongside Wilson on stage at the NASCAR Hall of Fame were fellow Championship Four contenders Tucker Minter, Nick Ottinger, and Garrett Lowe. Rather fittingly for Wilson, the only driver of the four to not clinch a spot in Charlotte by virtue of a victory, claimed the title without doing so either.
After starting on the outside of row one, Wilson spent much of the race following in the wheel tracks of his backend teammate and good friend, Donovan Strauss. Wilson’s nearest competition at the drop of the green flag was Minter who started in 15th, giving Wilson a comfortable cushion to begin the 100-lap race. Strauss led all 100 laps en route to victory but the focus of the evening was on the Championship Four.
Contrary to the trend of the season, the finale from Homestead-Miami was interrupted by just two caution flags that arose in quick succession near the race’s midway point. The latter yellow set up a 45-lap green flag run that would take the field of drivers to the season’s conclusion.
With Lowe and Ottinger mired deeper in the pack after starting 24th and 31st respectively, they rarely featured in the conversation as Minter and Wilson became the focus of the night. Minter rose to as high as third in the final run, with the bumper of Wilson placed squarely in his sights. The pace of Wilson proved to be too much of a hill to climb for Minter who, having used his tires in pursuit, began to drop back with inside 20 laps to run.
This time, the late caution flag never arrived and Wilson, behind Strauss, cruised to a second-place finish that netted him the title.
“It sounds unbelievable — I can’t believe I’m in this situation,” Wilson said. “I’ve got to thank everyone at Stewart-Haas, everybody at Smithfield, and everyone here to support me. All the family and friends who came out, they’re unbelievable. I wouldn’t be able to do any of this without them so just thank you so much.”
The first people on stage to congratulate Wilson were his mother and father, along with his extended family. All wearing matching t-shirts, they sat anxiously in the front row as the laps began to wind down. They, and Wilson, had been in that spot a year prior when Wilson came up short of Casey Kirwan in the inaugural edition of a live Championship Four at the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
“You got to have lows to have highs, it’s just happy to have this one,” Wilson said.
Wilson’s coronation marks the fifth straight eNASCAR season with a new champion. Only Ottinger, the 2020 titlist, was in a position to break that streak but he ended the race in 13th. Minter was looking to become the first rookie, besides Richard Towler in the inaugural season of 2010, to win the title but he finished in seventh. A Hail Mary strategy call from Lowe, who had little to lose, netted him a 35th-place result.
Off the back of strong performances from its rookie pairing, Team Dillon eSports claimed the team’s championship with the work of Minter and Jordy Lopez Jr. Both drivers finished the season in the top five.
The bottom 20 drivers in the points standings will have to re-earn their spot in the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series. Zack Novak, the 2019 champion, was the biggest name to miss the cut-off, setting up a stressful off-season. The series’ 2021 champion Keegan Leahy narrowly avoided relegation with his finish of 20th.
The eNASCAR Road to Pro Contender Series, where the top 20 drivers will earn a spot in next year’s eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series, begins later this fall.